Part 39 (2/2)
E. M. B.
Quin stood staring at the letter. He felt as he had on that August day when the flying shrapnel struck him--the same intense nausea, the deadly exhaustion, the bursting pain in his head. Involuntarily he raised his hand to the old wound, half expecting to feel the blood stream again through his fingers.
”Married! Married!” he kept repeating to himself dazedly. ”Miss Nell gone to marry that man, that scoundrel!”
He sat down on the stair steps and tried to hold the thought in his mind long enough to realize it. But Phipps himself kept getting in the way: Phipps the slacker, as he had known him in the army; Phipps the condescending lord of creation, who had refused to take his hand at Mr.
Ranny's; and oftenest of all Phipps the philanderer, who had insulted Rose Mattel, and been responsible for the dismissal of more than one nurse from the hospital. The mere thought of such a man in connection with Eleanor Bartlett made Quin's strong fingers clench around an imaginary neck and brought beads of perspiration to his forehead.
”Something's got to be done!” he thought wildly, staggering to his feet.
”I got to stop it; I got----”
Then the sense of his helplessness swept over him, and he sat down again on the steps. She had evidently left on the eight-o'clock train for Chicago, and it was now eight-thirty. There was nothing to be done. What a fool he had been to go on hoping and daring! She had told him again and again that she didn't care for him; but she had also told him that she did not intend to many anybody. But if she hadn't cared for him, why had she come to him with her troubles, and followed his advice, and wanted his good opinion? Why had she looked at him the way she had the day of Miss Enid's wedding, and said she remembered her dances with him better than those with anybody else? In bitterness of spirit he went over all the treasured words and glances he had h.o.a.rded since the day he met her.
He didn't believe she loved Harold Phipps! She didn't love anybody--yet.
But, in her mad desire to escape from home, she had taken the first means that presented itself. She had stepped into a trap, from which he was powerless to rescue her.
In a sudden anguish of despair he flung himself face downward on the steps and gave way to his anguish. There was no one to see and no one to hear. All the doubts and discouragements, the humiliations and disappointments, through which he had pa.s.sed to win her, came back to mock him, now he had lost her. The world had suddenly become an intolerable vacuum in which he gasped frantically for breath.
What was the use in going on? Why not put an end to everything? He could make it appear an accident. n.o.body would be the wiser. The temptation was growing stronger every second, when he suddenly remembered Miss Isobel.
”I forgot she was waiting,” he muttered, stumbling into the sitting-room and fumbling for the telephone. ”Miss Nell said I was to keep her from being anxious--she wanted me to comfort her. But what in h.e.l.l can I say!”
CHAPTER 25
At nine-thirty Edwin came in and pa.s.sed up the creaking stairs. Ten minutes later Ca.s.s limped by the door, stopping a moment in the pantry to get a bite to eat. Quin sat motionless in the dark sitting-room and made no sign. He was waiting for Rose, with a dumb dependence the strongest man feels for the understanding feminine in times of crisis.
When he heard her cheerful voice calling good night to Fan Loomis, the clock was just striking ten.
”Quin! What is it?” she cried in alarm the moment she saw his face. ”Is anybody dead?”
”Worse! She's run away to get married!”
”Not Myrna?”
”No. Miss Nell. She left to-night for Chicago to marry Phipps!”
”But she can't!” cried Rose wildly. ”It's got to be stopped. He's not fit to marry anybody! We've got to stop her!”
”I tell you, it's too late! She left on the eight-o'clock train.”
”Who said so? Are you sure? Do the Bartletts know?”
”n.o.body knows but you and me; n.o.body must know--yet. Maybe she'll change her mind.”
”But the Bartletts will miss her. Have they called up?”
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